Archive for the ‘Admin’ category

Apparently, I let the esauradiostudio.com domain expire on September 19th, ten years after registering it. I don’t actually remember receiving a renewal notice prior to expiry, but ultimately it’s for the best and I’m not especially eager to spend on my vanity more than I do already. Esau Radio Studio was the project name I used for slightly more melodic, occasionally beat-oriented music, which I haven’t really used since 2004, but have kept alive just in case I ever wanted to use the name again.

At the time of the project, I was obsessed with synth music and modular synthesis, especially synth music absent of drum machines when electronic percussion sounds were all programmed, like late-70s stuff by Human League, OMD, and Cluster, and other things like the first two Skinny Puppy records, David Kristian’s modular synth records and the stuff Suction Records was putting out in the early 2000s. I didn’t have a hardware modular synth then, so all sounds were programmed from scratch using only the Vaz Modular software.

The output under the name is by no means great, much of it was a learning effort in developing a personal style, but it has retained some charm. I’ll keep it available here, but I can do without paying the annual $25 to keep the domain name alive for no good reason.

After two years of blogging at the most excellent Intelligent Machinery website, I’ve decided it was time to bring it all in house. It’ll take me a few days to get it all sorted out.

Initially I wasn’t sure I’d be able to import the old content, but through some minor effort, I was able to cache the old blog to an RSS feed xhtml file and move it over. Some of the old stuff (links, formatting, pictures, I wasn’t able to capture comments on the old blog) might be broken. The old content has been categorized, hopefully in a sensible manner.

I’ve recently become fascinated with outboard multi-fx units. Not sure why exactly, since the likelihood that I will actually get one is low. Probably something I picked up while reading the Analog Industries blog, especially from Chris’s fascination for the Sequential Circuits Pro-FX modular unit (a fascination I now share). Anyway, I accidentally stumbled across this:

It’s the Mutronics Colorsound, a joint effort between, erm, Mutronics and Colorsound. Mutronics being the maker of the Mutator filter bank, and Colorsound being the makers of guitar pedals modeled on specific pedals from the 60s. I had never seen this thing before, which is essentially four guitar pedals contained with a fancy rack unit, but apparently it’s old news, even being reviewed four years ago in Sound on Sound, and I’m guessing no longer in production.

It’s a weird one for sure. Strikes me as odd to present guitar pedals in a high-end, boutique rack format, and selling them at a high-end, boutique price point (which appears to have been $1500 in 2002, but since Vintage King Audio was the only place I could find it on sale and you have to email for a price, I have no idea what they go for now).

It’s odd, but I find it really neat, especially since it seems like an off-the-cuff idea destined to be binned shortly after launch. So if anyone out there wants to give me one, I’d more than a happily accept.

Click the picture to take you to the info page on the Mutronics website, which appears to be only accessible via Google, and not from the Mutronics main page (further evidence they aren’t making the thing any more). I’m sure further googling would tell me how successful these things were, but I’m only so motivated to find these things out.